The president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Pedro Martín, demands the extension to Sundays of the operating hours of the inspection services in the port of Santa Cruz, so as to speed up the dispatch of merchandise and perishable products, as already it is being done in the port of Las Palmas, where a phytosanitary inspection service has already been set up for tests for that day of the week.
This was stated yesterday at the Board of Directors of the Tenerife Port Authority, where the rest of the members have adhered to their demand and it was agreed to adopt a forthcoming agreement in this regard at a monographic meeting to urge the State to launch the initiative as soon as possible.
Martín explained that “it is a need that we have already expressed on several occasions and on whose coverage we have been working in collaboration with the affected sectors, such as the Supermarket Association, the Tenerife Chamber of Commerce and other public and private entities, so that the Isla maintains its competitiveness”.
“After holding several meetings, we agree on the need to ask the Ministry of Territorial Policy to extend the phytosanitary inspection hours to Sundays so that physical and documentary inspections can be carried out, thus avoiding that perishable goods have to wait until Monday to be dispatched and for the containers to accumulate in the port”, indicated the president.
In addition, he added, “it would be important for a 24-hour documentary inspection service to be implemented, since it would allow most containers to leave the port more quickly and without causing disturbances or noise at night.”
For this, the president indicated that a request will be sent to the Ministry of Territorial Policy in order to expand the inspection services in the port of Santa Cruz, which has a Border Control Post to carry out imports and exports of all types of products. This expansion would make it possible to respond to the requests received for the inspection of perishable goods coming from the EU.
Since its inception in 2010, the Port Inspection Center of the port of Santa Cruz has been a pioneer in integrating all the services involved in the control of export and import goods within a single facility. It has a management system called single merchandise positioning, which allows all the people involved in physical inspection to be coordinated.
